A museum label has its uses, but it can also cause you to skip over your own observation. Before you check the title, date, creator, or art movement, let the painting introduce itself on the basis of what can already be seen. You do not need to be trained to use technical terms. You do need just a few focused questions, some sustained attention to the whole image, and enough time to see where your eye naturally goes.
Begin by viewing from a distance. You need to be able to see the composition in full, rather than a particular interesting bit of it. See what catches your attention first, whether a face, color, hand, window, shadow, fabric, or bold diagonal. What caused your eye to stop there? Was it difference, scale, color, light, location, or the suggestion of action? That initial response can help, because the artist can lead a viewer through the composition without any historical commentary.
Next, look from the whole image to the parts. Consider color and decide whether it seems to be warm, cold, subtle, vivid, dark, or light. Look at the grouping of the people, things, buildings, or outdoor scene. Consider if there is perspective and where it appears to extend. Consider if there are symbols and, although you might not know what they all mean, note which ones seem repeated, odd, deliberate, or emotionally significant. A flower, tool, book, candle, animal, garment, and more might be meaningful, although first it may suffice simply to note their presence.
One challenge for a beginner is moving directly from a statement like “I like it” or “I don’t like it” to a judgment. Taste is acceptable, but can prematurely end looking. Attempt to distinguish your reaction from your description. “It feels calm” is a judgment. “The people are static, the colors are gentle, and the lighting is even” is a description. Combining the two results in better writing: it feels calm because the people are static, the palette is understated, and nothing in the scene seems to be in haste.
Take notes in a small notebook or on a digital device during your first look. Write three observations before you have seen anything else, for example, one on structure, one on color or lighting, and one on content or details. Add a question as well: Why is the person looking away? Why does the building look so imposing? Why does the background look unfinished? Why does it feel like a play? This practice discourages viewing art history as an accumulation of facts about specific people and years and instead allows a painting to become a piece of evidence to return to.
Then the label can be used. Review the creator, artwork, date, and short history and compare the two. If the label includes Baroque theatricality, look again at light and dark differences, motion, and the expression of emotion. If the label includes Renaissance harmony, look for balance, perspective, and measured structure. If the label includes Impressionism, look again at the brushstroke, light, and the transient sense of moment. The label will be more effective if it responds to something that was already asked.
The same process allows one to compare styles. Later, when viewing another painting, you will have more than a recollection that you did or did not like the first painting; you will have a specific recollection of how the space is organized, how the color is handled, how the people are grouped, and what the detail seems to communicate. Over time, those observations can begin to help historical styles seem less like abstractions. Before leaving the work, take another view with nothing written; note something you may have overlooked. Often, that detail is where the discipline of seeing begins to become individual.